Avalon is a portrait of a robust, relationally rich extended family. Life is lived with others, both in times of shared joy, along with periods of struggles and hardships.
7 Reasons to Plant a Church by Starting a Non-Profit
Are you thinking about planting a church? You might first consider the benefits of starting a non-profit.
Book Highlights
There are two books that I read this week that I found very helpful. The first is titled The Lost Art of Connecting by Susan McPherson. The second is titled You’re Not Listening by Kate Murphy.
3 Key Missiological Principles - Video
These 3 missiological principles represent three of the most foundational paradigm shifts that most Chrisitan need to experience to more fully engage in God’s mission, especially in an increasing missionary context.
Place Matters
American life-styles, for all the material acquisition and the seeking after comforts and pleasures, are plagued by boredom, loneliness, alienation, and a high price tag.
Trading Spaces: Church and Spaces of Belonging (Post Covid-19)
What would it look like for your church to provide more opportunities for belonging in social, personal and intimate space?
The Importance of Rethinking Paradigms
Most efforts at change in the church fail to deal with the very assumptions on which Christendom is built and maintains itself. The change of thinking needed in our day as far as the church and its mission are concerned must be radical indeed; that is, it must go to the roots of the problem.
Covid19 Implications for the Church
In this episode, Dhati Lewis and Brad Brisco, the director of bivocational church planting for the North American Mission Board, discuss four things every pastor and church planter should be thinking about today, before COVID-19 subsides.
Covo and Covid 19
I think it is important to pause and reflect on the benefits of bivo/covo planting in the current "social distancing" climate we find ourselves in.
Rethinking Culture
The net effect of Christendom over the centuries was that Christianity moved from being a dynamic, revolutionary social and spiritual movement to being a static religious institution with its corresponding structures, priesthood, and rituals.
Church Renewal and the Missio Dei
God’s church doesn’t have a mission in your city; instead God’s mission in your city has a church — your particular, local church. He is calling your church to bring the good news of the Gospel of the kingdom to a world where bad news is depressingly infectious.
The Missionary Nature of God & the Sentness of the Church
One way to recognize that God is a missionary God is to examine what is referred to as the “sending language” in Scripture.
Bounded Set vs. Centered Set
This is one of the very best explanations of the social set theory referred to as Bounded Set and Centered Set. Deb Hirsch graciously applies the concept to the way we typically understand the church and helps us rethink a more missionary way to consider discipleship.
9 Personal Leadership Lessons
I have thought about the activities and practices that have shaped me the most over the past three decades. These lessons are simply descriptive of my own journey. While some of them may not fit who you are, I wish someone had shared each of these with me many years ago.
Begin With Missionary Activity
In the North American, post-Christian context in which we now live, we can’t plant churches by simply starting a Sunday morning worship gathering. There may have been a day when we could build a cool website, rent a meeting space, send out flyers, put up banners and “launch” a church by starting a Sunday service. But those days are gone, at least in many North American contexts.
What is a Missional Community?
“A Missional Community is a committed group of Jesus followers, the size of an extended family (12-25), empowered by the Spirit, to participate in God’s mission of redemption in a particular neighborhood and/or network.”
The Importance of Understanding Post-Christendom
Many in the church today still believe that Christianity is in a place of influence and significance. Many still operate under the false assumption that Christendom is alive and well. While there may be some parts of the country that still cling to Christian values, the vast majority of the population is rapidly moving away from the things associated with the church.
Moving The Church In A Missional Direction
When bringing about transformative change in the way people think and behave, I am convinced we must start with questions of “why” before considering the practical issues of “how.”
APEST and Church Planting Teams
When someone asks me about how church planters should think about APEST and teams, I usually start with this simple progression:
Why APEST?
I always struggled with how “non-pastors” fit into the mission and ministry of the church. The only lens I had in my early days of ministry was for “lay-people” to become pastor/teachers (like me and every other pastor), or to be available to volunteer for empty slots in my ministry plan. APEST helped me see that the five-fold gifts are given by Jesus to the body, not simply leaders.